Summary: We grow and multiply through faith, oppression, and obedience as God's ancient people did when they experienced harsh treatment in Egypt.

In The Last Days Newsletter, Leonard Ravenhill tells about a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village. They walked by an old man sitting beside a fence, and one of them asked, “Were any great men born in this village?” The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.” (Leonard Ravenhill, The Last Days Newsletter; www.PreacingToday.com)

And that’s the way it is everywhere, even here on Washington Island. Nobody starts out great. We all start out as infants, but God made us for greatness. God designed us to grow. When He created the first man and the first woman, both in his own image, He said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).

That’s God’s mandate to His original creation, and that’s God’s mandate to His new creation, as well! Thousands of years later, when God put together the church from those who were new creations in Christ, He said to them, “Go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). “Be my witnesses [starting] in Jerusalem, [then spreading] in all Judea and Samaria, and [then] to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

God never intended for us to remain small. Rather, He designed us, and redesigned us, for growth and greatness.

But the question is: How? How do we bear fruit and increase in number? How do we fill the earth and subdue it? How do we spread the influence of Christ to the ends of the earth, starting right here at home? How do we multiply disciples of Christ who love God and people?

Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 1, Exodus 1, where we see how God’s ancient people, the Jews, multiplied and spread throughout all of Egypt.

Exodus 1:1-7 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. (NIV)

This verse uses the same Hebrew words of God’s original mandate to Adam and Eve, here translated as “fruitful,” “multiply,” and “filled.” The point is: the Israelites grew from just 70 individuals to over 2 million people, according to some estimates. They were “fruitful.” They “multiplied.” They became “exceeding numerous” and “filled” the land, just as God had promised Jacob they would do before he moved to Egypt nearly 400 years before this.

In Genesis 46, God said to Jacob, “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there” (Genesis 46:3). And that’s exactly what happened. God is simply fulfilling the promise He made to Jacob.